Much Ad About Nothing

Thanks to Seth Stevenson's Slatearticle on the Clio awards, I just watched a really cool Honda ad in which a choir recreates all the sounds a Honda would make while on the road.

I often wonder whether the millions of dollars companies pour into advertising really have any effect. I can't remember the last time I was making a purchasing decision and thought, "hmm, what ads have I seen lately?" I suppose ads do have their intended effect in a more insidious manner, subliminally indoctrinating me to believe that a certain product is "cool." Even when it comes to food, which should depend entirely on taste, not brand popularity, advertising seems to work: I buy Coke or Pepsi from the grocery store, not RC Cola.

Speaking of insidious indoctrination, in about a month I'll be attending a free, weeklong seminar on Environment and Society sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies, a "nonpartisan" but conservative-leaning organization which, as far as I can tell, exists solely to indoctrinate impressionable college students like myself with free-market ideology. I feel vaguely dirty attending the seminar, like I'm willingly marching off to a "reeducation camp" or joining a cult (I guess I've already done the latter by becoming a member of the Party of the Right at Yale). The IHS presents itself as fair and balanced, and I suppose conservatives are to be admired for fighting to defend what they believe in the war of ideas, but still...